


Post "Milagro" missing scene

by scullybuck



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s06e18 Milagro, Missing Scene, Post Milagro, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullybuck/pseuds/scullybuck
Summary: After Scully is attacked by a psychic surgeon, a character from a book, Mulder finds her unconscious in his apartment. She ends up wearing one of his shirts and they have a cute conversation at the end. Post "Milagro"
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully
Kudos: 22





	Post "Milagro" missing scene

Mulder and Scully entered Phillip Padgett’s cell. Mulder handed him the plastic bag containing his manuscript. “Mr. Padgett, you can go. We apologize for our mistake. You’re free to finish your book.”  
Padgett took his book. “Thank you.” He exited the cell but stopped after just a few steps and turned back to Mulder and Scully. “I made a mistake myself.”  
“What’s that, Mr. Padgett?”  
“In my book, I’d written that Agent Scully falls in love. But that’s obviously impossible. Agent Scully is already in love.”  
Scully watches him, intrigued, as he walks away, her heart pounding as if her deepest secret has been revealed for all the world to see, sensing Mulder’s inquisitive eyes move to the back of her head. She’s afraid he knows, afraid he knows what she can barely begin to admit to herself, but she almost wishes he knew. She avoids his stare, walking slightly ahead of him down the jail corridor. Neither of them says a word as they make their way to the guard’s post to retrieve their weapons. Mulder fidgets uncomfortably, hands in his pockets until he takes one out to open the exit door for her when they get to the sunny jail lobby. The light is bright compared to the darkness of the cell area. They both squint, and he follows her out into the warm afternoon. Once they are in the car, Mulder puts the key in the ignition and starts to turn it, but stops. He looks ahead, trying to gather his words. She knows what he’s wondering.  
“Mulder, what he said in there. I know you have to be wondering. But he’s obviously not always right, he admitted that.”  
“No. I think he is. Before, he had just let his own feelings cloud what he knew, and that’s why he wrote the stuff he did about the two of you. Why would he say this now if it went against what he really wanted to be true? You had so much faith in his ability before. Why doubt it now?”  
“I don’t know, Mulder, what does it matter?”  
“I guess it doesn’t, but you don’t seem too curious about what he meant. Maybe that’s because you already know.”  
Scully sighed and looked out the side window, her body language clearly telling him she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.  
“Scully…” He stared at her, a slightly concerned but playful grin on his face. She finally turned to meet his gaze.  
“Can we just go?” she asked, a bit impatiently. He licked his lips and nodded softly, watching her for a moment, searching for any sign of what she was thinking before turning the key and pulling off.  
They didn’t really talk on the drive back to work. She was her usual self by the time they got there, and when they got to the basement she immediately started filling out a report for Skinner. Mulder was sitting in his chair facing the wall, still pondering what Padgett had said. He wasn’t sure why it was so curious to him, but he couldn’t get it off his mind. Before he knew it, it was time to go, and Scully got up to take her report upstairs to Skinner.  
“Mulder, do you want to look this over first?” she asked, offering the file to him as he shrugged on his jacket. She still wouldn’t look him in the eye. He reached out for the white folder, looking her in the face, but she still seemed elsewhere.  
“Scully?” he reached out with his other hand and placed it on her shoulder. “You okay?”  
This time, she looked up at him. “Yeah, I’m fine, why?”  
“Something is obviously on your mind. Is it what Padgett said?”  
“Mulder, I’m fine, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave a small, forced smile and walked towards the elevator.  
* * * * * * * * * *  
Mulder decided halfway home that he was going to have a talk with his strange neighbor. He stepped off the elevator and approached the door, not sure how to start the conversation. He could detect a faint whiff of cigarette smoke. He knocked lightly, and the steady click of the typewriter keys halted. He heard Padgett’s footsteps and then the click as the door was unlocked. As the door opened, he looked up at Mulder unsurprised to see him there, a satisfied, knowing smirk on his face.  
“Do you normally open the door without checking to see who it is? That’s dangerous, you know.” Mulder quipped sarcastically.  
“I knew who it was. I knew you’d want to talk to me.” Padgett opened the door wider, allowing room for Mulder to enter if he wished. He took a couple of steps inside the door as Padgett made his way back to his position in front of his typewriter. He didn’t look at Mulder. He simply stared down at the typewriter. “You want to know why I said what I did. You want to know who she’s in love with.”  
“I am a little curious, yes.”  
“No you aren’t. You already know. You only came here because you were scared. You want to talk to her about it, but you can’t figure out how. As much as you’re hoping it’s you, you also hope it’s not.” He took a Morley from the pack on the table and placed it between his lips, lighting it casually, as if bored with the conversation. “You think I know more than you, that there is something I can tell you. I only know what is, what is shown and out in the open for anyone to see if they are paying any attention. I can’t know anything you can’t know.”  
Mulder eyes him suspiciously. “So you’re telling me you don’t…-“ but Padgett cuts him off.  
“—I told you, Agent Mulder. If you know, I know. If you don’t know, how could I? I’m sorry, but I really need to work on my book.”  
Mulder chews on his bottom lip and nods, still not satisfied with what he’s been told. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Padgett.” He turns to step out and begins to pull the door closed behind him.  
“Agent Mulder.” Mulder opens the door back enough to look back inside at the eccentric author. “There are many truths that will never be revealed to you. Don’t take this one for granted.”

* * * * * * * * *  
Just as he gets back inside his apartment, he calls Scully. “He’s working on his book. I think you should get over here. If we can get any sense of what he’s up to by watching him, now would be a good time.”  
She arrives a half hour later, two cases of surveillance equipment in hand. “Eyes and ears. We should be able to watch him through the vent with this camera, and these [she picks up a mic and headphones from the black open case] can detect a pin drop at 50 yards.” Mulder gets a chair to stand on and positions the equipment in the vent as Scully puts on the headphones. He adjusts the camera. “Anything?”  
“No, he’s just sittin’ there. Staring.”  
The fuzzy black and white screen shows Padgett at his writing table. He seems to be talking to himself, but she can’t make out what he’s saying. Scully lies back on Mulder’s couch to rest her eyes and nods off for a moment. She stirs as Mulder comes back into the room from the kitchen with a glass of water. He asks, “What’s he up to now?” and takes a seat by her on the couch, inspecting the tiny screen.  
“He just started typing again.” They watch as Padgett suddenly gathers the pages of his book and walks out of view.  
“Now what,” Mulder mumbles, perturbed. He gets up and adjusts the camera again, trying to find Padgett, when they hear a door close. Mulder jumps down from the chair and goes out into the hallway just in time to see Padgett get on the elevator. He takes the stairs, hoping to catch Padgett in time. He knows where he’s headed. He finds him downstairs standing in front of the incinerator, his book in hand.  
“Padgett!” Mulder draws his gun on him. “Freeze! Step away from the incinerator.” Padgett, puzzled, takes a step back.  
Meanwhile, Scully is delayed because she had to put her boots on. She zips them up and runs to the door to find Mulder. But she is greeted at the door by a stranger in a grey hooded sweatshirt. She gasps, and he pushes her back into Mulder’s apartment.  
Downstairs, Padgett and Mulder don’t take their eyes off each other. “What do you think you’re doing?”  
“Destroying my book.”  
“Destroying evidence, you mean. Let me see what you wrote.” Mulder is now just a couple of feet from Padgett, his gun pointed at his chest.  
“I’ll tell ya. He kills her.”  
* * * * * * * * * * *  
The stranger is on top of Scully, his fingers digging into her chest like knives, blood pooling around her neck, the crimson soaking into her white blouse. Her screams are gut-wrenching. She squirms, her head rolling from side to side as she tries to push him off of her with one hand at his throat and struggles to reach for her gun with the other.  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
“You came down here to give these instructions to your accomplice?” Mulder asks as he flips through a few of the pages in Padgett’s hands and lets them fall to the ground.  
“No, he told me how it ends.”  
“When?”  
“In my apartment.”  
“You were alone up there.” Just then he is distracted by the sound of gunshots. Scully.  
* * * * * * * * * * *  
She shoots the man several times, point blank, but he is unfazed, his fingers continuing to dig into her body, sharp, slicing, blood pooling around her. Her mind is whirling, not believing this is happening, wondering where Mulder was, not understanding why her bullets were having no effect. The bullets embed themselves in the wall near the ceiling of Mulder’s living room. She empties the gun and tosses it aside, both hands pushing against the man, with every ounce of strength she has, she fights, but to no avail. Mulder reacts to the gunshots and bolts back up stairs to his apartment. He leaves Padgett in the basement as the author frantically gathers the pages on the ground. Mulder gets to the door of his apartment, gun drawn, just in time to find Scully alone, lying on the floor unconscious and soaked in blood. He is shocked to find her like this, not sure what to do. But his presence startles her awake. She lets out a yelp in fear, then relief. He holds her by the shoulders, trying to calm her. She pulls him to her, desperately clinging to him, grabbing onto him for dear life, so thankful he is here and the other man is gone, and she knows she was safe. He just kneels there hugging her even tighter, a pained look on his face as she begins to sob. She clutches onto him, her face buried in his neck. He closed his eyes and pulls her close and they remain that way for several minutes. When she stops crying, she loosens her grip on him somewhat. He holds her at arm’s length and looks down at the blood soaking into her white blouse, worried.  
“Scully, what happened?” He asks, although he already knows. He strokes her cheek with his thumb, wiping away a tear, fusses over her, pulls at her bloody top, looks her over. “Are you okay?”  
She is still in shock, her heart pounding, a little out of breath, but she nods, looking down at her chest and gingerly touching the area where the stranger’s fingers had caused her so much pain. “I’m okay. It…it doesn’t hurt anymore. I don’t…” She shakes her head in disbelief. She reaches up to him for a hand and he takes her arm and carefully eases her to her feet. He leads her to the couch where she shakily sits down. “You need anything, Scully? Want some water?” He steps into the kitchen and comes out with a glass of water. She accepts it, thanking him, and takes some small sips, trying to calm herself.  
“Mulder, I…I shot him. Several times. But he wouldn’t stop…I don’t understand, his fingers were cutting into me, but I don’t have a scratch on me. How can that be…”  
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s true, maybe Padgett literally brought the character to life, maybe he was really a psychic surgeon. I caught Padgett down by the incinerator destroying his book. Maybe destroying the words is what destroys the character. As crazy as it sounds, it’s the only thing that makes sense given what happened.”  
Scully stares straight ahead with a slight frown, trying to clear her head and wrap her brain around it all. Mulder gives her hand a squeeze, watching her. She sits forward, her elbows on her knees and face in her hands. Mulder runs a reassuring hand across her back.  
“You sure you’re okay, Scully?”  
“Yeah.” She pulls her blouse out a bit and looks over it. “This all feels like a bad dream. I was attacked by a fictional character from a book.” She shakes her head, smirking at the absurdity of it.  
“You want to get a shower and put on a clean shirt?” She nods and heads to the bathroom while he digs something out of his dresser for her to put on and grabs a towel from a laundry basket on the floor. Mulder knocks on the bathroom door and calls to Scully that he has her some clothes. She tells him he can come in. She is concealed behind the shower curtain, the steam already fogging up the mirror. He knows Scully loves hot showers, but wow. He sets the t shirt and a fresh towel on the counter and closes the door.  
Mulder returns to the living room and sits down on the edge of the worn leather couch. He is still reeling from the shock of thinking he’d found Scully dead. Without thinking, his eyes wander to the spot on his floor where she had lain just a few minutes before. A small, dark pool of blood had gathered on the carpet. He rests his face in his hands and rubs his eyes with his fingertips and sighs.  
A few minutes later, Scully emerges from the bathroom, her red hair hanging limp and wet, wearing her slacks and the grey shirt Mulder had given her. It was more than a little big on her, but it was free of blood, at least.  
“Feel better?”  
“Much. Thanks.”  
She sits down beside him on the couch again. After a moment, Scully breaks the silence.  
“Mulder, I’m sorry.”  
“For what?”  
“When Padgett said what he did…I just…I didn’t know what to do. He really caught me off guard.”  
Mulder shook his head, this thing that seemed so big to him earlier in the day now seemed nearly insignificant after what had just happened.  
“Scully, it’s okay, that would be a strange thing for anyone to hear, especially from someone who can peg people as well as he can. It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re okay. I…I really thought you weren’t for a minute there. I just knew I was too late. That was the most frightened I think I’ve ever been.” He looks down at his hands and swallows hard. “I’m sorry this all happened, Scully,” he says quietly, looking back up at her. “I have to admit something to you that you may not like, but please don’t take it the wrong way. As much as I am thankful we have managed to stay together as partners over the years despite the X-Files being closed more than once and all the trouble we’ve been in, I always carry a lot of guilt.”  
“Guilt? About what?”  
“Because if you had never met me, you’d still have your sister, you would have never been abducted nor had to endure all the problems and illness it’s caused nor would you have been through what happened today or any of the other horrific experiences you’ve endured. You’d probably be married to a doctor or something and have kids and a perfect life.” He looks back down at the floor, unable to look her in the eye. “I will always feel like – like I robbed you of all that.”  
She shakes her head in disbelief, a painful lump in her throat. She found it profoundly sad he’d been carrying this heavy burden all these years, that he blames himself for everything that’d happened.  
“Mulder, you stood out in that hallway just a few months ago and told me what I meant to you. I’ve never been so moved as I was by what you said to me. I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere except here with you. I told you. I can be a doctor. And I am. But my work is with you. It’s my choice, it’s what I love.”  
“So you honestly don’t resent me at all?”  
“Have I ever given you the impression that I did?” There was a slightly wounded quality to her voice.  
“No, but I think it might make me feel better if you did. I know that makes no sense. But I think it would alleviate some of my guilt if you could just be mad at me about some of it,” he grinned.  
“You want me to be mad about something? I’m mad about all the clothes and shoes I’ve ruined over the past 6 years. There’s no telling what my dry cleaners think of me.”  
“I’ll take you shopping, Scully, how about this weekend? I’ll buy you a whole pack of men’s grey T shirts.” They laughed, both of them relieved that the mood had lightened. There was a long pause. She yawned and looked at her watch. 9:30pm. And she was exhausted.  
“I guess I’d better get going. I need some sleep in a bad way.” She stood up and slipped her jacket over the large T shirt, knowing it looked ridiculous but not caring one bit. He smiled at her, noticing how tiny she was in his shirt. He walked her to the door and opened it.  
“You sure you’re okay to drive home?”  
“I’m fine, Mulder, a little tired, but I’m good.” She smiled reassuringly and turned to step into the hall. But just as she turned, he caught her arm and gently pulled her back inside.  
He pulled her to him, one hand on the back of her head, the other around her shoulders. She wasn’t expecting a hug, and it took her a second to reciprocate.  
“You know it’s okay to tell me if you’re not,” he whispered.  
“I know,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. He kisses the top of her head and steps back to hold her shoulders at arm’s length, looking right into her face.  
“Even if you don’t blame me, everything that you’ve been through and sacrificed has not been forgotten. I hope you never feel taken for granted.” She chokes back a tear and shakes her head, giving him a small smile.  
“And I hope you know not everything Padgett said was fiction,” she eyed him slyly.  
“Which part?” his brow furrows, intrigued by her mysterious implication. She gives his hand a quick squeeze and just smiles.  
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mulder.” He watches her as she turns and heads for the elevator, a confused yet curious look on his face. When the bell dings and she gets on, she turns around and meets his gaze from the end of the hallway. She smiles again in her beautiful Scully way and the doors close. He shakes his head and quietly mumbles to himself, “You always keep me guessing.”


End file.
